Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
“I mean the charity you founded and run. It’s all about people. It’s all about community. It’s all about helping people literally transform.”
“I guess so.”
“No, there’s no guessing about it. That is literally what you do.” I turn and hold her wrists so she can see how serious I am.
“You know who you sound like?” Roos looks down into my eyes, earnest and serious.
“Who?” I frown.
“Lex.” She nods towards the part of the room where xe is waiting for us.
I roll my eyes at her. “I need conditioner, bitch,” I tease, and she laughs, and… maybe. Maybe we’re going to be okay after all.
*****
Once my hair is conditioned and my body washed thoroughly, it is a gift when Roos lets me wash her hair.
I don’t know how she feels about her natural hair – it’s a conversation we’ve only danced around – but I don’t take it for granted that she lets me shampoo and condition it and gently run my fingers through it, removing all the product.
I take my time doing it and in washing her body afterwards, knowing that I’m delaying the inevitable. Lex.
“Hey, Roos,” I say with my hand on the shower valve but not ready to switch it off yet. I need the noise of the spray to hide from Lex what I’m about to say. “Did you mean what you said on the stage? Do you want to explore…us?”
Roos covers my hand and turns the water off. “Yes,” she says in the new silence. And maybe she wants Lex to hear. Maybe it’s important for her, and for me, that Lex hears. “I want an us. I want us to explore that.”
“Good,” I say, because what else can I possibly say? I push up and kiss her lips, water droplets from her cheeks mixing with those on mine. “Good.”
We step out of the shower and wrap ourselves in towels. I find a couple of hand towels for our hair, and we help each other make turbans out of them. We’re holding hands as we re-emerge into the main room where Lex awaits us.
And it looks like xe has been busy. Candles are lit throughout the room on all available surfaces, and the main light has been dimmed down. On the bed are two robes and two pairs of woollen socks. Between them is a basket with various bottles and tubes inside, as well as a hairbrush.
“What’s this?” I demand. I know my tone is too harsh when Roos nudges me.
“It’s your aftercare,” Lex says. Xe isn’t smirking like I have come to expect.
Xe is fiddling with the hem of xir vest top in a way I haven’t seen for, fuck, over a decade, and I’m transported back in time.
Xe looks exactly the same as xe did ten years ago when xe used to get nervous about a presentation at school or about confessing to xir mum xe got detention, again. I can’t look away from it.
“Amazing,” Roos says, and she wastes no time, dropping her towel and wrapping herself up in a dressing gown. She sits on the bed and starts looking through the items in the basket.
“May I?” Lex reaches for the hairbrush.
Roos nods. “But be gentle. You know I’m hanging on to whatever I’ve got.”
“You’re beautiful,” Lex says, and the angriest part of me wants to yell, ‘that’s my line!’ at xem.
Lex climbs up on the bed behind Roos and starts to brush her hair. At the same time, Roos squeezes out a blob of some product or other and massages it into her face and hands. “God, that feels good,” she says. “Come join us, Mari.”
I want to. That’s the thing that annoys me most. I want to sit there and have my hair brushed by Lex and sniff all the moisturisers in the basket before I pick which one I want.
I want to forget about all the years of hurt Lex caused me.
I want to focus on the future – on Roos – and do this to make her happy.
I want to, but I can’t.
“I can brush my own hair,” I say. I grab the free dressing gown, throw it over my body, and only drop the towel underneath once it’s securely tied.
“If that’s what you need.” Lex holds out the brush. I grab it without replying.
Roos yawns. “God, I’m so tired. What time is it?”
“Half eleven, last time I checked. You can sleep for an hour or two, if you want,” Lex replies.
“Is that allowed?” I bark.
“Yes,” Lex says simply, and I wait for xem to elaborate, to take this opportunity to educate or patronise me, but instead, they focus on helping Roos get under the covers. “You do look tired.”
“I haven’t been sleeping very well recently,” she explains as her head sinks onto the pillow.
“I can tell,” Lex says, and although xir tone is neutral, bordering on tender, I take it as a personal offense. I curse myself for not noticing the grey half-moons under Roos’ eyes and the pallor of her skin. “Sleep, roosje, sleep.”
Lex lies on top of the sheets facing Roos. Xe strokes Roos’ cheek until her breath evens out and it’s clear she’s asleep. I stop brushing my hair and just stare at Lex and Roos. It feels impossible to hate xem when xe just soothed Roos to sleep like that.
Not that I’m going to say any such thing out loud.
“You should lie down, too,” Lex says, and xe pushes up to sitting. “I can leave, and you can sleep together. Just set an alarm, perhaps.”
It’s the last offer I expect Lex to make, and it throws me so much, I don’t know how to reply. I don’t realise how devastating that is until Lex fills the silence I create.
“Or I could stay, and I could help you sleep too,” xe suggests with slightly elevated eyebrows, like xir is already bracing for my refusal and rage.
I don’t say anything, but I’m suddenly so deeply tired, I crawl onto the bed and lie down. I settle on top of the sheets, gather my robe around my body, and close my eyes.
“Stay if you want. Or go. Whatever,” I finally say, and I leave it up to Lex, to fate.
There’s no movement from xem for a few long minutes.
Sleep creeps closer and closer to me, but I’m unable to fall into its embrace fully because my feet are cold.
I think about those thick socks that were lying on my dressing gown.
Why didn’t I put them on? I fidget around, hoping to locate them with my feet, but I can’t find them.
“You want these?” I open my eyes to see Lex sitting up next to me and holding the socks.
“Yeah, my feet are cold.” I push up on my hands and reach for them.
“No, let me.” Lex moves them slightly out of reach. “Please?”
I can’t remember the last time Lex asked me for something like that, with a please, with a note of need in xir voice.
Even when we were together a decade ago.
Even before that when we were best friends for years.
Lex never gave me the impression xe needed anything from me.
That they never needed me. And that always left me feeling more than a little unwanted.
So maybe I can do this for old time’s sake. Maybe letting xem put these woollen socks on my feet will help heal the part of me xe broke.
“Fine,” I say, and I look down at my feet expectantly as Lex moves on the bed, taking great care not to rock Roos too much as they position xemself at the end of my body.
Xe slips the first sock on slowly and carefully, like the wool is precious and delicate.
Or maybe like I am. The warmth is instant and so is the relief.
Xe seems to take even more time rolling up the second sock, readying it to put on.
This time, xe lifts my foot and places it on xir lap.
I wait for more warmth, more soft wool, but it doesn’t come.
Instead, I watch, transfixed as Lex lifts my foot again and brings it up to xir face.
Xe looks at me and holds my eye contact as xe brings the bridge of my foot to her lips and kisses it.
It’s featherlight, lightning quick, and an instant electric shock all the way up my leg and into my core.
I struggle to find my breath as xe lowers it and puts the sock on like that didn’t just happen.
I want to tell xem to fuck off. I want to strangle xem. I want to beg them to do it again. But I don’t do anything. I sit there in a trance watching xem return to lying next to me.
“Roll over, Mari,” xe says in that low, sultry voice my body never forgot. “Let me help you sleep.”
I don’t have it in me to argue or resist. Or maybe I do, I’m just choosing not to tap into that power. Tonight has been a night of submitting, so maybe I’m just letting Lex finished what Roos started. Whatever the reason, I do as Lex says and curl up on my side.
Xir body slots in behind mine perfectly, just like it always did.
My muscle memory is quick to relax into xir embrace after what must have been hundreds and hundreds of nights in this position when we were teens.
I feel betrayed by my at-ease body and my slowing heartrate.
I feel like a failure for not being able to forget.
“Go to sleep, Mari,” Lex says. “I’ll wake you up when it’s time to go.”
It sounds so ominous. Time to go? Go where? Where are we going after this – Roos, Lex, and me?
It’s too much to think about, especially when Lex’s hand is on my hip, and I can feel xir chest rise and fall against my back. It’s too much to think about, so I stop thinking, and because I want to stop feeling, I let sleep come and claim me.
*****
Lex is true to xir word and wakes me.
I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep – minutes or hours – but I know when Lex shakes my body awake, it’s not because we’ve overstayed our welcome in this room in QISS. I immediately know it’s for a different, much more sinister reason.
“Mari, wake up!” Xe says urgently. “It’s Roos! Something’s wrong.”
I jolt up and look over at the woman I know I’m falling in love with.
She’s trembling – spasming, really. Her whole body convulses under the sheets. Her head is thrown back at an unnatural angle, and her eyes are half-closed or half-open or just not right. A thin dribble of drool runs down her chin which is also protracted at an angle I’ve never seen before.
“What the fuck?” I gasp.
“I think she’s having a seizure,” Lex tells me, putting a hand on Roos’ arm.
“We’ve got to do something.” I shift closer to Roos. “Call an ambulance.”
“I already have. Nadia is waiting for them outside,” Lex says, and I see xir phone is in xir other hand and the door to the room is wide open. “Where’s Joel when we fucking need him?”
I open my mouth to argue with xem that this isn’t Joel’s fault, but I realise that would be just as unhelpful.
“Oh, God, she looks like she’s in pain,” I say, and as if she can hear me – and maybe she can – Roos groans through her clamped-shut jaw.
“It’s okay, Roos.” Lex smooths her hair away from her face, just like she did last night, hugging her to sleep. “I’m here. Mari’s here. You’re not alone.”
I feel foolish. I feel useless. I feel terrified.
“Reassure her, Mari! If she can see and hear you, you need to reassure her!” Lex demands.
“Shit, sorry, I… Yes, Roos, I’m here,” I say, sitting down beside her as she continues to convulse. “It’s all going to be okay.”
“We won’t let anything bad happen to you,” Lex adds, and I don’t know where this is coming from. These words. This calm. This love.
Through the bowels of the club, we can hear a distant siren get louder and clearer.
“Oh, thank God,” I say, and Lex gives me a warning look.
Right, not being helpful.
“Stay with her,” xe orders as xe gets up. “Tell her you love her. Tell her we’ll never leave her. Tell her everything is going to be okay.”
Lex walks to the door. I realise then all the candles have been blown out, and the lights are on fully. Xe has been busy. It’s like Lex has everything under control.
I repeat the words Lex ordered me to. I tell Roos I love her, which is not a lie.
I tell her that I’ll never leave her, which is also the truth.
And I tell her that everything is going to be okay, even though I don’t believe it.
Not in this moment when everything is pure chaos and so very, very wrong.